Excerpt from A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Chapter One

Three months earlier

Haze

I really was very lucky. I looked around our brand-new, expansive kitchen. Bespoke wooden cabinets, marble countertop, an electric five-door AGA. A family painting of three stick figures holding hands stuck to the stainless-steel fridge doors.

I grew up in many different places, but I never had a home. I grew up with many different people, but I never had a family.

Now I finally had both.

Don't f*** it up.

I stared at the wall nearest the window as I chopped grapes at the island. Four different shades of white were painted on it. The paint codes for each option underneath. Decisions, decisions.

"Neeeeowwwwwwwww!" Fox walked into the kitchen, holding a giggling Bibi with her arms out like an airplane. He was in the suit he was wearing when we first met. It was thirteen years ago this June. The American stranger who came to my rescue in Paris. I felt a stab of something. I wasn't sure what.

"And crash landing!" Fox dropped Bibi into her highchair at the oak dining table, where a bowl of porridge and banana was waiting for her.

"Pawgee!" said Bibi as she picked up her plastic spoon.

"Porridge," Fox corrected, sitting down next to her. "She's twenty-nine months old, she should be up to two hundred words by now. At last count, she was only at a hundred and seventy-three."

I shrugged. "She'll get there."

Fox observed me slicing. "Don't forget: to stop the risk of choking, the grapes need to be cut vertically. Not horizontally."

I paused. And altered my slicing direction. The knife was sharp. I was cutting them faster and faster.

At forty-three, Fox was only six years older than me, but he had aged much worse. Yes, his dark blond hair still had no streaks of gray. Yes, he was still annoyingly handsome and wrinkle-free. But ... Jesus. He kept sounding like an old man. Maybe the passport I thought was his real one was also fake. Maybe he was actually a youthful-looking sixty-year-old.

"She's definitely behind on her talking." Fox cleared his throat. "Studies show a baby sibling can help toddlers develop faster." He looked up at me over his cup of coffee.

My knife faltered and slipped.

"F***!" I lifted my left index finger, a streak of blood now coloring the end of it. I stood there staring at it as it dripped onto the white chopping board.

"F*****." Bibi laughed.

"Language, Hazel!" Fox slammed his coffee down on the table. Wow, using my full name—he really was mad.

"What?" I shrugged. "Now she's at a hundred and seventy-four."

Our home was a four-bedroom detached house in a gated community in Sunningdale. Here, the nice mummies, whom

I mostly managed to avoid, had many ways to deal with the stress of running a perfect home and raising perfect children. They focused on Pilates, day-drinking, Net-a-Porter, and the local spa, where Jonas and his tight shorts massaged away any tension in their upper backs.

I had my own way of dealing with stress, but that was not allowed anymore.

It had been one thousand, one hundred and sixty-nine days.

Tonight, we were having a few of the neighbors over for dinner. We had somehow joined a rota of entertaining one-upmanship and tonight was our turn. When Bibi was at nursery, I went grocery shopping. I always went to the same smaller but slightly out-of-the-way independent shops. Supporting local businesses and killing more time. I remembered the names of all the people behind the counters and granted each one an inane pleasantry about the weather. A smile was so fixed to my face, my cheeks began to ache.

I picked up Bibi, dry-cleaning, and flowers for the table. Once home, I put Bibi down for a nap. I stood over her crib, stroking her hair as she fell asleep.

"I love you more than anything in this world." I leaned closer to her. "I'll never let anything happen to you."

Excerpted from A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay. Copyright © 2025 by Asia Mackay. Excerpted by permission of Bantam Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.